Do you believe that you are what you eat?

At almost 35, people have been telling me that I look five years younger. Or I would put an 18 year old body to shame. ;)

Awww, I don’t want to sound as if I’m bragging, but yes, I will own it! hahaha

Mind you, I don’t do diet. But this is the healthiest I've been and I'm loving it!

Thanks to my Ventanilla genes (and being happily not a mother yet)-- I’ve been a skinny biatch and quite tall, ever since my world began. :)

Fortunately, the-Chinese-food-culture-influence-in-me was such a positive impact as well.

I am also aware that aging will eat me up before I know it or motherhood in the future, that’s why almost half a decade ago, I made a conscious effort to take care of my health.

Why?!

Health is wealth. Really.

Tina Turner once said in her Oprah interview (something that goes like this), “You will have family and friends around when you’re sick. They will give you all the support you will need; emotionally, spiritually, and financially. But none of them can ever help you with your physical pain, so take care of your body in every possible way you can.” (And oh, have you seen her at her age now?! Just wow.)

At my recent homecoming, I was shocked to hear sad news of distant relatives, the-who-you-are-people-in-town, and even common friends of friends about their untimely deaths, who seemed to be living healthy lives as I can remember.

Their common culprit: heart attack and high blood.

Well, why, I’m not surprised?! Look at the food I ate in the coconut republic...sooo cholesterol friendly!

So as this blog entry says: Let's talk about a healthy lifestyle (and mindset!)

Because I stumbled upon French-Filipino blogger, Erwan Heussaff’s interview, as he talked about his advocacy and I wanted to back him up. Feeling close lang! Chos!

1. Teaching Filipinos how to cook healthy and enjoying their food.

2. Internationalized Filipino food culture (like Thai & Japanese).

He also talked about losing weight—the healthy way and changing his lifestyle into living healthier and never looking back.

Geez, he was once 240 lbs. as a 20 year old guy. But look at him now, such a H-O-T-T-I-E!!!

Can you believe he lost half of that weight in six months?!

How?

1. He cooked his own food.

2. He started an active lifestyle a.k.a. going to the gym, walk, swim, run, and bike. He became an Ironman athlete.

But how can you engage a person to be on a healthy diet? Erwan: You can’t. You have to influence them to be healthy.

How do i keep a healthy lifestyle?

1. I don’t drink cold. Or soda drinks anymore. I swear! I switched to lukewarm water/ tea because as the Chinese believed, drinking hot water will help release the oil in your body through urinating. So even if I eat fatty foods, I make sure to combat it by drinking LOTS of lukewarm water. And the reason why I don't have bulging stomach! :P

2. I stopped eating fast food. I can’t remember when was the last time I ate McDonalds or KFC.

3. I cook my own meals, in that way I know what's on it. This was because I heard/read in the news that although Chinese foods are generally healthy, they put some nasty stuffs in it. Heard of baozi made of cardboard box instead of meat?! Yuck. Yuck. Yuck.

4. I gave up the alcohol. I occasionally drink wine. I think I have accumulated all the alcohol that my 20 something self has ever taken. And that was enough for me.

5. My form of exercise is walking. Since I don’t have the time and the will to go to the gym, I walk myself by using the stairs both from-to the 5th floor of my office and my house. I occasionally bike and swim too.

6. I look for healthy options with my foods. I eat wheat bread and brown rice instead of the regular ones. I drink coffee in the morning but drink two/three cups of tea the whole day. I also make sure that I eat fruits within the day. And of course, enough sleep at night.

7. Erwan was really right when he said, if you want to do something, you will. And I really took an effort to give time for my cooking-- and eating healthily. Although, I did not have a hard time moving away from junk foods and fast food because I never liked them anyway but I do indulge myself to a box of chocolate every now and then. ;)

As a conclusion and again, I completely agree with Erwan (Yes, close talaga kami! :) ) when he said:

“The more you do it, the more your body can ingrain it. It’s all about balancing a lifestyle. Be strict and disciplined. And indulge a little bit.”

UPDATE: I wrote this blog while I was still living in China. But last month, I was able to watch a mind-opening documentary on Netflix: What The Health! And I highly recommend watching it if you have a subscription. I even bought the book so that I can even read more about this topic.

Basically, the documentary is about BEING HEALTHY by only eating plant-based diet. Meaning: no meat at all! Vegan all the way, baby! I know it's tough for all of us, but if you do get to see the documentary, it will really encourage you to go vegan. I swear!

What I learned from this movie: Dr Neal Barnard, "Diabetes is not and never was caused by eating a high carbohydrate diet, and it's not caused by eating sugar. The cause of diabetes is a diet that builds up the amount of fat into the blood. I'm talking about a typical meat-based, animal-based diet. You can look into the muscle cells of the human body, and you find that they're building up tiny particles of fat that's causing insulin resistance. What that means is, the sugar that is naturally from the foods that you're eating can't get into the cells where it belongs. It builds up in the blood, and that's diabetes."

So I'm slowly trying to move away from meat but yes, it's very, very, very difficult to do. But I know I can. And I will. And so I hope you do, too. ☺

Here's the trailer of What The Health!

Have you embraced a healthy lifestyle? What was difficult to give up on your diet?